Thursday, November 10, 2011

I promised earlier to shed some light on the production of Oceanhorn. So, here I go and present the people behind this game!

Jukka and Antti Viljamaa are the brothers of Cornfox & Bros. They still work as Lead Programmers in the Death Rally iOS project and are busy working both updating Death Rally Multiplayer and coding new features for Oceanhorn. Their creative talent combined with their university doctorate diplomas make them unstoppable forces of nature when it comes to game development, and they are also nice guys! :) Previously they worked on games such as Star Wars: Force Unleashed (Mobile) and de Blob Revolution (iOS).

I (Heikki Repo, Fox of Cornfox & Bros.) work as a Lead Artist and Lead Game Designer in Death Rally, but since my work is somewhat finished at the moment I can concentrate on creating art and game design for Oceanhorn. I've made my career as a Lead Artist, Artist, and Animator in multiple iOS and Mobile games, such as SW: Force Unleashed (Mobile), Star Wars: Cantina, and de Blob Revolution.

One of the most important aspects of Oceanhorn is a 3D tile map editor, called "OCEAN: Tile-Based Worlds", developed together with Mountain Sheep, creators of Minigore and Bike Baron. Together with their wonderful coders (e.g. Tim Wiren and Erik Hakala) we have been able to create a fun and efficient world editor that can be used for all our upcoming games. Editor is still work in progress and it will be developed at the same time with Oceanhorn. It runs on iPad, so we can immediately test controls and gameplay in the maps we create. Because of the 3D tile map approach, we can efficiently create lots of level content with a small team.

Unsuccesful troll...

Why are we making a retro-adventure game for today's market? We just loved those games back in the day and we feel like action adventure genre should take a look back and learn something from its past. Too many good ideas have been forgotten and left untouched for years now. What happened to worlds were you can travel to all four winds? What happened to the interactivity in those worlds? Back in the day, you could spend time exploring one screen full of bushes and grass with your sword - or bomb through walls or just test all your equipment with your environment. Maybe you found a coin there, or a secret seashell, but certainly you found depth from the game's world. There are still games that value these traditions, especially one very big game series we all love, but other than that the evolution of console style adventure games has grown thin, or stopped even.

PS. We put hearts in that heads-up display because we think numbers are a very unintuitive way of communicating one's health and other such things. It's good for counting ammunition or money, but other than that - let's leave numbers for programmers and their ilk. :)

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Yesterday we announced our new adventure title Oceanhorn: Monster of the Uncharted Seas through toucharcade.com's wildly active forums. None of us could have predicted the tremendous amount of positive feedback we got for our game! I think we hit the sweetspot here: people want adventure games to balance their gaming diet on iOS.

This looks really fantastic! Everything from the gorgeous art style to the adventurous premise hits all the right notes. Can't wait to see more of Oceanhorn. :D

People have been asking questions, so I'm going to give out some answers. First of all, the game is going to be Universal, so one purchase will make it work on all of your iOS devices. Previously we released Death Rally as Universal and it was received well among the players and media alike.

We are not ready to give this game a specific release date just yet; it will be released when it is ready. :) - Don't worry though, we are working hard on this! More information about characters, controls and game mechanics will be revealed soon.

Cornfox also has a twitter account and we would be thrilled to get more followers!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Welcome to the development blog of Oceanhorn, a new adventure game from Cornfox & Brothers, the developers of the iOS hit game Death Rally! On this
blog we will follow the game development of our new adventure title and
hopefully, this space will be constantly updated with art, screenshots
and gameplay videos.

Development of Oceanhorn began from our love towards old console adventure games, where instead of looting dungeons and grinding XP you explored the world and solved puzzles and followed dusty maps to find treasures from the remains of old temples and castles. We want to deliver that experience, where instead of taking care of boring chores you can have an adventure of your lifetime on a fantasy land.

Oceanhorn is an ancient sea monster that terrorizes the World of Uncharted Seas. The game puts you in the boots of a nameless hero who, in order to save his sister, must slay this monster for good. In this game, the world is open for exploration by foot or by boat, but beware - the sea monster can attack at any time and ill-prepared travelers will meet their early demise.

Equip your boat with new sails, hulls or even with forgotten technology like Smog Engine to outwit Oceanhorn in battle. Roam the lands and explore ancient ruins to find the legendary Coral Harpoon. Learn the history of the Uncharted Seas. What happened to the civilization whose cities now lay in ruins?